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Is there any medicine that can give me happy hormones and does not need a doctor's prescription?

Things are becoming more depressing every day and I can't afford for professionals and don't want to jump to the last resort or drugs. Is there a medicine that can make me happy if I take it in proper doses and does not require a doctor's prescription?

111 comments
  • Vitamin D3 is a good idea, generally the recommendation is 1000 IU a day. Especially now after the winter (assuming you're in the Northern hemisphere) your vitamin D storage is probably depleted (the body needs a certain amount of UV radiation on the skin to produce vitamin D.

    Regular exercise has been proven to help against depression and I think it's probably the best and most important thing you can do. While helping your depression it will also help your general health and fitness.

    Eat well: lots and lots of veggies, legumes and whole grain products. If unhealthy food makes you happy, don't cut it from your diet completely. Allow yourself to eat sweets etc every once in a while and in moderation, but try to have a very healthy diet as a basis.

    These things are probably hard to implement when you're depressed in the first place but I guarantee you they'll help and become easier as you go if you consistently stick to them. It takes about 66 days on average to build new habits. So if you manage to stick to it for about 2-3 months, it will become a lot easier.

    Good luck!

  • In terms of mental health, drugs that give any kind of relief should be treated as a shelter from the storm so you can rebuild. This means if you're not rebuilding while you're in shelter, your happiness is only going to last as long as your shelter is standing. Drugs wear off, and it is very easy to just want to keep putting your shelter up ad infinitum. This is where the second problem of drugs for relief comes in. The shelter is sub-standard compared to doing the things to build a lasting happiness. You can get stoned as shit, but if you and your life is still in shambles there's only so much that can do.

    All the above being said cannabis can help when you need a break. Psychedelics can help as well and microdosing incurs minimal risk. Neither of these will fix any of your problems, but they can enable you to work on your problems yourself when it was too difficult to before.

    Alternatively, if you want to avoid drugs altogether meditation can be an option in some circumstances. This is barely a recommendation because meditation is a skill that you have to practice in optimal form consistently before you'll get anything at all from it. It's impossible to actually know whether you're doing it right until you start to feel relief from it and so many things can make practicing mediation as a beginner almost impossible if you're in crisis. If you attempt mediation with absolutely no expectations other than that you will fail at it until you happen to approach it in a way that works you may eventually get some relief from it. If you get it working consistently, it is far stronger than anything you can get legally without a prescription in terms of providing relief. I can give you some guidance if you're interested in this path. Secondarily, Kava can help a little in that it dulls the pain.

    Vallerian root, kanna, ashwaganda, etc. might work if you believe strongly that they're working. Avoid depressants like alcohol because although they provide temporary relief they also make things worse when they wear off which can be a terrible cycle.

  • St Johns Wort can help. It's not as effective as prescription medication, but can help deal with mild 'low mood' type symptoms. It's comparable to the effect of a compression bandage on a joint. It will help with the equivalent of a pulled tendon, but will do next to nothing against the equivalent of a shattered elbow.

    It is worth noting that there are 2 sorts of depression. Feeling sad, while unpleasant, is a lot easier to treat. It's generally caused by external stimulus. While this is harder to treat with drugs, it responds a LOT better to lifestyle changes. Basically, you need to figure out 2 things. What is making you sad, and how do you remove that effect. Implementing it can be an absolute removed, but it's worth the effort.

    The other sort of depression is proper "clinical depression". This is a chemical imbalance in the brain. It can be brought on by external stimulus, but it's not dependent on them. With this, your brain starts losing the ability to care. Motivation becomes a lot harder, and so the cost to payoff with positive activities gets worse. Internally, it's like having the chroma on a TV turned down. Everything gets muted and dull. Nothing is worth the effort required to do it. This sort of depression does need proper treatment. It's far more insidious and will grind you down. To beat it you need to change your very brain wiring. This can be done, but generally requires significant external support. If you could beat it alone, you likely wouldn't have become trapped within it.

    I've experienced both. Neither are pleasant. Just keep in mind, both distort your thinking. Often, you can't fully trust your own thinking. Situations that seem impossible to cope with will just crumble when actually attacked. However, without enough motivation, you often won't even try.

    An just to note, if you get to the point of intrusive, self destructive thoughts, that's when you need to seriously reach out to external help. Even if you think you can cope with them, they can send your mind spiraling downwards.

  • The line between medicine and drug is largely arbitrary.

    Start with the basics of diet, exercise, water, sleep, social interaction. They're consistent and have very low harm potential. It's also shocking how much each of them contributed to a sense of well being, or how much a lack of any one of them can cause a downward spiral.

    Supplements and vitamins also aren't super risky, although they aren't well regulated and many do nothing in their pill form. One or some of the vitamin Bs seem important for me personally, although I'm not 100% certain and I don't know which one(s) and to what degree. But I'll drink a monster energy regularly because they have 200-400% dv. Omegas from fish oils may also be good. L-tyrosine and things like it are commonly discussed in nootropics boards, I can't vouch for them personally.

    As far as medications, it's unlikely you'll find an easy and risk-free solution, unfortunately. Even well-studied prescription medications aren't guaranteed to work for your specific needs and have potential to make things worse, which is why in an ideal world everyone would have access to a medical professional that can oversee their use. And often the ones that work aren't immediately obvious, but demonstrate marginal improvement over the longer term. In fact euphoria and hypomania (which in the moment feel like "oh my god this drug is working") may be signs the drug isn't a good fit. Very difficult to gauge on your own.

    Online prescription mills are fairly painless if you have a good idea that a specific medication might work for you. I used them to get on a specific antidepressant after doing my own research.

    Kanna and St John's wort both have SSRI compounds I believe. Be careful, just because something's a legal plant doesn't mean it can't interact negatively or have harmful effects. But these are probably the closest to what you're asking.

    Kratom is legal and can boost mood but has high addictive potential. In my experience not worth it except to get off more addictive substances.

    Dex/dxm/dextromethorphan is an active ingredient in some cough suppressants that has antidepressive potential. Can be purchased with no additives at some pharmacies and online. Tripping on this isn't fun at all in my opinion, I'd rather do salvia, but small doses seem to have some mood improving effects that last a few days

    Stay away from diphenhydramine (I mention it because it's often spoken of in the same context as Dex). Its use has been linked to dementia.

    Psychedelics can help deconstruct old assumptions and mental structures that may be contributing to your depression. I'd describe the experience as rediscovering the magic of existence. Many of them also have antidepressant qualities-- a sort of afterglow that may last a week or a month. Microdosing is said to tap into the afterglow without tripping. LSD and shrooms are fairly well-studied. Mescaline acts similarly and may be easier to find. Morning glory seeds are legal and contain LSA which is similar to LSD. Salvia acts differently than any of these, often leading to bad trips, but is generally legal. None of these are addictive, but may be risky for people with certain mental illnesses.

    There are a variety of legal and grey market stims that can improve mood, but they may have harmful effects and addictive potential. You'll find a bunch of them if you browse nootropics boards, but keep in mind anonymous comments are not scientific and may undersell risk and negative effects. Nootropics boards will also discuss other supposedly cognitive enhancing substances. Lions mane is a common one. Some are natural supplements or things your body already produces (though this doesn't guarantee they're safe or pure). Many are addictive, many are probably snake oil. Search a drug/supplement on pubmed before trying it.

    Adjacent to nootropics and more dangerous is research chemicals. Half of them are attempts to make "legal" but identical/similar analogues to illegal drugs. Some are novel. Almost none of them have been studied and purity is never guaranteed. I Honestly don't recommend unless you're at a point where it doesn't matter. At one point for me it was "find a happy chemical or commit suicide" and I think that's the only level this kind of experimentation is truly justified. But well-studied psychedelics are preferable.

  • 5-HTP is a mood-regulating supplement, like a mild anti-depressant. I once took it for a year and it actually helped. But for the first week it made me more emotional. Read about it on webMD so you understand it and the risks.

    But the real answer is exercise, healthy diet, and maybe vitamin D. Boring answer, I know, but the absolute best one too.

    • Be careful if you take MDMA or any other serotonin drug while on 5-HTP. This supplement assists the body in making serotonin, and can cause serotonin storm in rare cases when combined with party drugs.

  • Tesofensine is an antidepressant with weight loss effects that can be purchased online without a prescription for research purposes.

    It's fairly expensive, usually running about $250 for a one month supply, but if you need a temporary break from your depression then it might work for you.

    However, because it is a research chemical, all of the side effects of the chemical are not known and you would be taking a risk in using it even for a short period of time.

    Chances are it is likely safe but there is still a risk and you have to weigh that against your mental health and your finances and the costs and difficulty associated with getting put on a traditional antidepressant prescribed to you by a competent doctor.

  • Medicine would be drugs. Unless you mean in the broad sense of the term.

    For me I require a reason behind my happiness, maybe it's my autism I'm not sure, however without a foundation leading to smiles the smiles are lackluster. Just forcing myself to go outside, sit in a nice park, etc. helps place me into opportunities where I can notice things that make me happy bit by bit.
    These little things add up. Being at a small time gig, of a band I haven't heard of, being around people who like the same things helps a lot.

    I've wanted to see my favourite musicians, and I managed to through perseverance (Corey Taylor is an amazing human being, his outlook definitely rubbed off on me). I wanted to go to Europe, and everyone I knew kept saying "one day", so I decided that "one day" for me was going to be the next. Packed some things and went that weekend to Amsterdam, by myself, and met 3-4 people and we all hung out together for four days and we had such a connection we enjoyed ourselves so much.

    If you have an inkling of places or things that would make you happy, perhaps try forcing the first step into it. It's easier said than done, though good luck man.

  • I would say weed but im not sure thats helping, on contrary.

    I want to say, try taking the sun, just go seat in a park with chill music or a book.

    If you are an overthinker, try to focus only on things that you can change or have an impact.
    If you cant, stop to think about it, its either "to late", or useless.
    Ruminations are not good.

    Im really bad on theses advices, but when i do that, thats working.
    My feelings often drives me,

    Identify the bad feeling, understand it, accept it, embrasse it (even external factors that you cant change), and go next.
    Life is a slut in a way yeah, but you can be "the slut" too,

  • Someone I think on mander.xyz was saying that regular 90-second cold showers seemed anecdotally to be maybe competitive with medication in terms of how well it combatted depression

111 comments